Look at the expression on this little wretch's face. He looks
like he's extremely constipated and someone is paying him to smile.
Or maybe both happy and angry at the same time, if that's possible.
If you see this box in your collection, burn it!

Story: 5/10
Why do I even review the story? Who cares? It only matters in games that have actual character development. This game has none. So in subsequent reviews, there will not be a "story" category unless the specific game calls for it. Suffice it to say, the story in Crash Bandicoot sucks just as much as the game itself! The character of Crash is simply a stupid concept. They were trying to capitalize on Sonic the Hedgehog so they gave Crash tons and tons of 'tude. All great videogame characters have 'tude, right? Not Mario. Crash looks awkward and unappealing as well. What a super-lame character. I can't believe he is still starring in (discount) games to this day! He keeps getting passed from developer to developer, so that should tell you how crappy this character is.

Graphics: 7/10
I'm being pretty generous with the graphics score here, but that's taking into account the time it was released and the system it was released on. When I first got the game, I thought it looked pretty good. Lots of colorful polygons (for the day) and they moved smoothly either back or forth. The graphics seemed better than they really were since there wasn't much in the way of actual 3D movement, and all of the power could be dedicated to what is actually being shown on the screen at the time. Like all Playstation 3D games, Crash is extremely grainy and dark. Sony must have had a mandate to all developers saying "Thou shalt use thy X-Treme grain filter on thy 3D games as well as make them dark, so that Joe Redifer may henceforth project vast sums of vomit any time he looks at one of our games". I can think of no other reason that PS1 games were so grainy. Saturn 3D games weren't grainy... they just looked bad in their own special way.

Ahhh, the map screen. This is where you
choose to take your horrible journey next.

Sound: 4/10
The music is far from decent. It's not horrible, it just barely exists. It kind of reminds me of the music from Kid Chameleon for the Sega Genesis in terms of both composition and sound quality, only not quite that good. Good music would have made this game much more enjoyable. The sounds are average fare. The only sound you will remember is the sound of smashing boxes, because that's all you do in the entire game!

Crash has tons of 'tude. Who can like a game character that
doesn't have 'tude? 'Tude rules. It is essential. Behind
Crash are boxes he can smash, and that is his sole reason
for existence. It sucks to be Crash, but it sucks
even more to be the player!

Gameplay: 2/10
Believe it or not, there is some actual gameplay in this game! Here's what you do: Move around, smash boxes, and get to the goal. THAT'S IT! That's all you do! Sometimes the developers with put a hole in the ground and you will have to (get this) jump over it! That most certainly adds to the gameplay. But the developers went all out on this game. Some levels have you in a typical side-scrolling environment, only with piss-poor dark polygons. Smash the boxes and get to the goal. WOW!!!! Playing this game is the equivalent to plucking all of the fibers out of your carpet one by one until you get 100%. Ug!

Run forward Crash, run! Jump if you need to! Go!
Personally, I'd rather have a rusty nail in my eyeball.

I love this game, in fact, this is the best Crash game ever, however I havent been able to play this game for the past 5 years, my little niece broke it. It still works but it eventually freezes, so it also doesn't work.

I sort of disagree with your score on Crash Bandicoot, although it didn't offer anything original, but it is a solid platformer title on PSX, which it was lacking at the time being. It does have some interesting elements like in some stages Crash runs toward you, instead of the standard side scroller.

Ah yes, 4 Sega games all on one GBA cartridge. Actually according to Nintendo (and this is true) the GameBoy Advance is not to be known as the GBA. Instead, Nintendo calls it AGB. They call the GameBoy Advance SP the AGS. True true true. Yes, they only hire morons over at Nintendo, and if their IQ is above 65 they can't have the job. At least this explains the όber-retarded "GCN" when referring to the Gamecube, eh? Anyway, with this cheap game you get After Burner, Out Run, Space Harrier and Super Hang-On all on one cartridge! They are all games designed by Yu Suzuki, except for the ones that aren't. Yu had nothing to do with Super Hang-On. He did, however, create the vastly inferior (and not quite super) "Hang-On". Let the games commence!

Holy Hell!
Not only does this cartridge have 4 Sega arcade games on it,
but there is a screen which actually lets you select whiich one
you want to play! This raises the score one whole point!

Out Run

Graphics: 6/10
You can't ask too much from the AGS, so the graphics aren't even half as good as the real arcade games, but they come close on the AGS's super low-resolution screen. Most of the games are chunky looking, with odd-sized sprites and some weird stuff going on. However all of the games run at a nice 60 frames per second, so the motion is (mostly) smooth.

Out Run:
Out Run probably has the best graphics of the quartet. Lots of stuff is missing from the arcade, but all of the motion is very smooth, colors are good and generally it looks just like the arcade. Good job!

After Burner:
After Burner is the weakest of the 4. The landscape is scarce, enemy missles are obstructed by your large plane, movement is awkward, and everything is just generally ass-tastic.

Space Harrier:
Space Harrier looks pretty good. Everything seems quite a bit smaller, though, and much blockier. The scaling is fairly smooth for the most part, but I just can't shake the feeling that I'm playing a "kids version" of the game.

Super Hang-On:
This game has both good and bad aspects of the graphics. The good is that this is the first home conversion of the game to actually use real scaling hardware. The bad news is that the scaling is a bit chunky, especially on the checkpoint gates. Also, there is a weird after-effect thing going on with some of the imagery on the side of the road (see the Super Hang-On picture towards the bottom of this review and notice the trees).

After Burner

Sound: 7/10
The sound and music is generally pretty good as a package. The main gameplay music generally sounds just like it did in the arcade. The incidental music (name screen, title screen, etc) usually sound a bit different and much wimpier. As with all games on the AGS, the sound quality is very hissy and scratchy. In Space Harrier, instead of saying "You're doin' great!" when you clear a stage, it just says "Great!". Apparently the AGS hardware cannot handle the phrase "You're doin'" without a meltdown. It is just asking too much of the system.

Space Harrier

Gameplay: 6/10
The gameplay remains pretty good for the mist part, but the AGS's digital controller doesn't exactly help things. Lots of the movements tend to be exaggerated, meaning that when you press left for example, you go too far to the left.

Out Run:
Plays well with pretty much the same difficulty as the real arcade game. Not too terribly much to complain about here.

After Burner:
Horrible. Very difficult to control, nearly impossible to do a full barrel roll, and just feels completely awkward. Also this is a port of After Burner, not After Burner II. After Burner II added bonus stages and other cool things. In this collection, this is definitely the worst of the bunch.

Space Harrier:
Not too bad. Being a huge Space Harrier fan myself, this version leaves quite a bit to be desired. For some reason a timer has been added to the game. I'm not sure what that's all about. The game is linear and it's not like you can't beat a stage "on time". Also, no matter how you have the controls set (either "A" or "B") when you press down, you go up, exactly the opposite of every other Space Harrier game ever made. It is quite hard because it is really easy to run into things.

Super Hang-On:
This one is really unbalanced. I was able to complete the 3 hardest courses with ease. But the easiest course is completely IMPOSSIBLE!!!! Ug! I am glad that there is finally another home conversion of this game, because it is often overlooked. What a great game with great music. Could have been better on the AGS though.

Super Hang-On

Wrap up:
Not a bad li'l package for a cheap price (about $15 or so). Don't expect arcade perfection, just "arcade similarness" if there is such a thing.

I sort of disagree with your score on Crash Bandicoot, although it didn't offer anything original, but it is a solid platformer title on PSX, which it was lacking at the time being. It does have some interesting elements like in some stages Crash runs toward you, instead of the standard side scroller.

Not to mention that Crash Bandicoot must be the HARDEST game to ever finish with ALL GEMS & BOTH KEYS!
I remeber reading something about this game that went like: "If you can collect everything, then you must be a god" or something like that. Seems they're right, we got to Cortex using a password!
BTW I have Crash Twinsanity, and the game's hilariously funny!

Not to mention that Crash Bandicoot must be the HARDEST game to ever finish with ALL GEMS & BOTH KEYS!
I remeber reading something about this game that went like: "If you can collect everything, then you must be a god" or something like that. Seems they're right, we got to Cortex using a password!
BTW I have Crash Twinsanity, and the game's hilariously funny!

I finished Crash Bandicoot 1 and 2 and 3 and 4 %100 it is not that hard :annoyed:

No, it has nothing at all to do with difficulty (and btw, I've played through far more difficult titles). It's just that running around spinning through boxes and running from boulders isn't my idea of a legendary platformer.

No, it has nothing at all to do with difficulty (and btw, I've played through far more difficult titles). It's just that running around spinning through boxes and running from boulders isn't my idea of a legendary platformer.

Most people throw away their box for Nintendo games.
That's because boxes for Nintendo games suck ass.
This will finally change when the DS comes out.
Oh wait... the US Gamecube has nice boxes...

They've taken the mega-awesome Super Monkeyball from the Gamecube and put him on the AGS (Gameboy Advance SP, for those of you who are not cool enough to be "in-the-know" about how Nintendo refers to its systems. I will never refer to it as the "GBA" until people stop referring to the Gamecube as the "GCN"). You control a monkey who is in prison for being a serial killer. But it isn't a jail like you probably know it (being that's you've been to jail, you lawbreaker), but a monkey's prison is being trapped inside of a little ball forever and ever. One day the wardens were bored and decided that if you can make it through a whole bunch o' obstacles, you will be released and you'll be free to murder again! This game should appeal to all of the Gran Theft Turdismo Vice City enthusiasts out there for it's mega violent nature.

Grab the banana, little monkey.
Or Peter Gabriel will SHOCK YOU!

Graphics: 7/10
The graphics aren't amazing, but I've got to give it credit because it's pushing 3D polygons on the AGS! You couldn't do this on the SNES, not without the Super FX chip. The Sega Genesis SVC chip could probably run it a little faster though, so there! Anyway, the graphics are fairly decent when this is considered, and along with those polygons comes scaling sprites (something else the SNES could not do) as well as scaling backgrounds/"mode 7". There is even some transparency in certain spots of the game, like during the credits and also the Monkey Bowling mini-game. Not too bad considering the system it is running on.

If you're smart, you can figure out shortcuts.
If you're dumb, you'll just fall off and die.
That's what happened to me in this pic.

Sound: 7/10
Most of the sound is taken straight from the Gamecube version of the game, like many of the voices. Not all of the voices would fit on the cartridge, though. Some of the music was digitized from the GC version as well. Other music was just "redone" from the GC version using the AGS's built in synth. They sound OK. The worst part of the music is the name-entry screen, which is original music for this version provided by BITS or whoever actually programmed the game. God it is awful! But I score the sound high due to the faithfulness to the original game and copious amounts of voice.

The Master level in this game is impossible.
Due to the pop-up, you can't even see the rest of the stage.
And I have only 24 seconds to get to the goal! Yeah right.

Gameplay: 7/10
The game runs at about 2/3 the speed of the Gamecube version, but the clock runs at the same speed which can make things more difficult. And there is no analog control. You have your choice of one of 8 directions at any given time, instead of 360 like the GC version. But this version does try to compensate somewhat by letting you press the "B" button to tilt softer and the "A" button to tilt harder. This helps you be a little more precise in spots, but it isn't that intuitive. The main game consists of 65 stages across 4 classes of difficulty. It takes a bit to get used to the control, but once you do, you shouldn't have too much of a problem getting past most boards. If you can beat a difficulty level without using a continue, you get a few bonus levels which you can play. The game you play while the programming credits are shown is really fun, perhaps the most fun thing about the game. I'd love to see 40 stages just of boards like this. You can unlock minigames, extra continues, and an extra difficulty class (Master). The master difficulty only has 5 stages, but that's because it is impossible. They give you only 30 seconds to go across huge and complicated boards. GOOD LUCK! The minigames are pretty cool for the most part. You have Monkey Fight, which is almost exactly like the GC version. Then there is Monkey Bowling which is probably the best portable bowling game in existence! Finally there is Monkey Golf, which is just as bland as the GC version. You can unlock another 9 holes to have a total of 18 holes by playing the main game. I have unlocked everything there is to unlock in this game, of course. The game provides some good fun for the most part.

Monkey Bowling is the best minigame offered here.
It's better than real bowling, that's for sure.

Wrap up:
A good portable version of Super Monkeyball. Play this for awhile, and then go play the real thing on your Gamecube. WOW what a difference!